The Elf Herself writes:
For those of you "back east" (California definition: anywhere east of the Pecos River in Texas--the Mississippi River is WAY back east) the "Santa Ana" wind (note only one "N" in "Ana") that is quoted as being so deadly and drying is probably the same type of wind that you may know as the "Chinook." For those of you in Europe, you may know it as the "Foehn" wind. At any rate, it's a warm wind that comes after cold, parching the earth. When I lived in the south end of this long, central valley, The Santa Ana would mean a dust storm. The tail end of the Sierra Mountains were to the west of our house, about 50 or 60 miles. Beyond it was the Mojave Desert (think cactus, yucca plants, desert rattlesnakes, Death Valley.) The sand from the desert would blow into our house from any west-facing doors, unless we rolled up rags and stuffed them beneath the doors. In the towns at the top of the mountain range, any cars left outside were in danger of having all the paint scrubbed off. We've seen it happen. Poor management is mostly to blame for forest fires. For millennia, native Americans would burn away the scrub brush in and around forests. This kept the fire danger down, because the type of trees in the Sierras run to 1. those whose cones needed fire to help them open and spawn(white pine), and 2. those which needed to be rid of some of the brush, so that any downed logs might sprout and grow new trees (redwood and giant sequoias.) So here come a slew of strangers, mostly from Europe and Britain (including my ancestors,) who knew forests as oak, birch, and firs. Fires were deadly to them, of course. The strangers assumed that all forests were like that. Ergo, prevent all fires at all costs! It didn't help that nobody thought about traffic, either. Many mountain communities were built with only one road in/out. The town of Paradise, for example. Los Angeles was a desert (except west of the cliffs down to the beaches and the coast,) which gets nearly all its water from a now-nearly-dry mountain town many miles north. (We Californians are destroying ourselves.)
The various electric companies are nearly all being held at fault for having those nasty electric power lines which eventually age and need replacement. Yes, the solution is to bury the lines underground. Wonderful! Of course, it costs approximately a $1,000,000 per mile.
Since I retired, state law has been changed, in the name of ecology. The company I used to work for has been forced to sell off all its hydro-electric dams (for ecology.?) Our governor has decreed that in about 5 years' time, no gas appliances shall be sold in California, nor any fossil-fueled vehicle.
Remember this about electric power: at some point, the power goes off--always.
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